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Reports of the death of libraries have been greatly exaggerated.
Take Montreal’s Grande Bibliothèque. A decade ago, Quebec did an unprecedented thing, combining the main branch of a municipal public library and the province’s national library in one building. The hybrid has been called both a “temple of literacy” and a “home away from home” with “an atmosphere of exclusivity.”
The modernist building occupies an entire city block and 355,000 square feet over six levels. Designed by Vancouver’s Patkau Architects, it cost $97.6 million to design, build and furnish. Despite its location in the bohemian Latin Quarter, vandalism is rare and graffiti is not a problem.
The Bibliothèque was expected to attract about 1.5 million visitors a year. Instead, it has drawn well over two million, including a record three million visitors in 2009, more than any other library in North America, including the central branch of the New York Public Library.
Friends Rania Ghemari, left, and Mey Benkelfat hang out at La Grande Biblioteheque.
Popular with students at nearby universities, researchers and ordinary readers, it also has other users. Quebec’s employment ministry has a space set aside for job-seeking immigrants. The province’s music archives are in the building, as well as an amphitheatre and a language lab. There’s a basement exhibition hall, currently home to Night at the Museum, a virtual reality tour of 10 great libraries that has attracted national attention.
It’s location, at the intersection of three subway lines, is part of the magic.
John MacLeod, a semi-retired cable installer, visits five or six times a week to read English-language periodicals and borrow CDs. It takes him 12 minutes to get to the library by subway. “It’s good in the winter. You don’t even have to come outdoors.”
Jessica Devivier, a PhD student in medical anthropology at the Université de Montréal, uses only the national library portion of the building, where she combs through newspapers for reports on vaccinations. Sometimes she spends 20 hours a week there. “I like to discover history,” she says.
The National Librarian and Archivist of Canada Guy Berthiaume has proposed a partnership with the Ottawa Public Library. He brings experience gained during his five-year tenure as chair and CEO in Montreal. The Citizen asked him about what he sees for a partnership in Ottawa.
Q: Why did you want to partner with the Ottawa Public Library?
Librarian and Archivist of Canada Guy Berthiaume.
A: When I first got here 19 months ago, I learned that they were looking to move the central library. And I figured this a great opportunity for us. Although the Library and Archives building is well-situated between the Supreme Court and the War Museum, it’s still a difficult destination. People keep telling me there’s not enough parking. I wanted to have a strong presence here at 395 Wellington. Still, it’s not a destination and it would be a challenge to create one. If we moved into a place with a least a million visitors a year, it’s a great opportunity for us. If it’s an iconic building, if it’s not too far from here, it would be great. The idea is to go where the people are.
Q: Librarians at La Grande Bibliothèque speak of it as a “third place.” What does this mean?
The furniture in La Grande Bibliotheque was designed by the Montreal firm of Michel Dallaire, Industrial Design.
A: Even in the public spaces there is a quality of silence, of architecture, of furnishing. If there are four teenagers living in a small apartment because they’re going to college, that’s where they would go to work or study. They’re not using our books. They’re just in a place that allows them to concentrate. It’s not only the relationship with the books. They also have movies, music, video games. Even if they don’t borrow a book or look at an archive, they come. We actually had writers working on novels in the library. They could do it at the kitchen table, but they would prefer to work in the library.
Q: The main floor at La Grande Bibliothèque is getting an overhaul. Why?
A: The main floor was very transactional. People would line up to sign out the books. We need less space for that kind of transaction. We wanted a space that was like a bookstore-slash-Starbucks.
Q: What would you be looking to move from Library and Archives to Ottawa’s new central branch?
A: The reading rooms, mostly. That would be the second third and fourth floor of this (Library and Archives) building. We’re not going to move all the stacks. We’re going to move the most-requested materials.
Q: What are the most-requested?
A: Books. Mostly those for genealogies. Most of our visitors are either researchers or genealogists.
Q: You want dedicated genealogy space in the new central branch in Ottawa. Why?
A: It’s one of our fortés. Having more people coming in will create more demand for our services. We have the experts, we have the collection, the instruments, we have a lot to offer. More than 50 per cent of our clients and requests are genealogists, and it’s on the rise. And people will have more time to look into those things. (Department store executive) Bonnie Brooks was at a library conference in Toronto and she showed us pie charts and said: ‘Boomers will still be the greatest part of your clientele.’
A man walks past a poster for the Library at Night, an virtual reality exhibition commissioned for the library’s 10th anniversary.
Q: You say exhibitions are important.
A: One of the mistakes at the Grande Bibliothèque is that the exhibition space was an afterthought. The exhibition space is downstairs. It’s not something I would do again. I’m going to make sure it’s better-situated. The one I like at La Grande Bibliothèque is on the second floor. You see the exhibit whether you want to or not. It’s just a matter of creating something that will draw your attention.
jlaucius@postmedia.com
查看原文...
Take Montreal’s Grande Bibliothèque. A decade ago, Quebec did an unprecedented thing, combining the main branch of a municipal public library and the province’s national library in one building. The hybrid has been called both a “temple of literacy” and a “home away from home” with “an atmosphere of exclusivity.”
The modernist building occupies an entire city block and 355,000 square feet over six levels. Designed by Vancouver’s Patkau Architects, it cost $97.6 million to design, build and furnish. Despite its location in the bohemian Latin Quarter, vandalism is rare and graffiti is not a problem.
The Bibliothèque was expected to attract about 1.5 million visitors a year. Instead, it has drawn well over two million, including a record three million visitors in 2009, more than any other library in North America, including the central branch of the New York Public Library.
Friends Rania Ghemari, left, and Mey Benkelfat hang out at La Grande Biblioteheque.
Popular with students at nearby universities, researchers and ordinary readers, it also has other users. Quebec’s employment ministry has a space set aside for job-seeking immigrants. The province’s music archives are in the building, as well as an amphitheatre and a language lab. There’s a basement exhibition hall, currently home to Night at the Museum, a virtual reality tour of 10 great libraries that has attracted national attention.
It’s location, at the intersection of three subway lines, is part of the magic.
John MacLeod, a semi-retired cable installer, visits five or six times a week to read English-language periodicals and borrow CDs. It takes him 12 minutes to get to the library by subway. “It’s good in the winter. You don’t even have to come outdoors.”
Jessica Devivier, a PhD student in medical anthropology at the Université de Montréal, uses only the national library portion of the building, where she combs through newspapers for reports on vaccinations. Sometimes she spends 20 hours a week there. “I like to discover history,” she says.
The National Librarian and Archivist of Canada Guy Berthiaume has proposed a partnership with the Ottawa Public Library. He brings experience gained during his five-year tenure as chair and CEO in Montreal. The Citizen asked him about what he sees for a partnership in Ottawa.
Q: Why did you want to partner with the Ottawa Public Library?
Librarian and Archivist of Canada Guy Berthiaume.
A: When I first got here 19 months ago, I learned that they were looking to move the central library. And I figured this a great opportunity for us. Although the Library and Archives building is well-situated between the Supreme Court and the War Museum, it’s still a difficult destination. People keep telling me there’s not enough parking. I wanted to have a strong presence here at 395 Wellington. Still, it’s not a destination and it would be a challenge to create one. If we moved into a place with a least a million visitors a year, it’s a great opportunity for us. If it’s an iconic building, if it’s not too far from here, it would be great. The idea is to go where the people are.
Q: Librarians at La Grande Bibliothèque speak of it as a “third place.” What does this mean?
The furniture in La Grande Bibliotheque was designed by the Montreal firm of Michel Dallaire, Industrial Design.
A: Even in the public spaces there is a quality of silence, of architecture, of furnishing. If there are four teenagers living in a small apartment because they’re going to college, that’s where they would go to work or study. They’re not using our books. They’re just in a place that allows them to concentrate. It’s not only the relationship with the books. They also have movies, music, video games. Even if they don’t borrow a book or look at an archive, they come. We actually had writers working on novels in the library. They could do it at the kitchen table, but they would prefer to work in the library.
Q: The main floor at La Grande Bibliothèque is getting an overhaul. Why?
A: The main floor was very transactional. People would line up to sign out the books. We need less space for that kind of transaction. We wanted a space that was like a bookstore-slash-Starbucks.
Q: What would you be looking to move from Library and Archives to Ottawa’s new central branch?
A: The reading rooms, mostly. That would be the second third and fourth floor of this (Library and Archives) building. We’re not going to move all the stacks. We’re going to move the most-requested materials.
Q: What are the most-requested?
A: Books. Mostly those for genealogies. Most of our visitors are either researchers or genealogists.
Q: You want dedicated genealogy space in the new central branch in Ottawa. Why?
A: It’s one of our fortés. Having more people coming in will create more demand for our services. We have the experts, we have the collection, the instruments, we have a lot to offer. More than 50 per cent of our clients and requests are genealogists, and it’s on the rise. And people will have more time to look into those things. (Department store executive) Bonnie Brooks was at a library conference in Toronto and she showed us pie charts and said: ‘Boomers will still be the greatest part of your clientele.’
A man walks past a poster for the Library at Night, an virtual reality exhibition commissioned for the library’s 10th anniversary.
Q: You say exhibitions are important.
A: One of the mistakes at the Grande Bibliothèque is that the exhibition space was an afterthought. The exhibition space is downstairs. It’s not something I would do again. I’m going to make sure it’s better-situated. The one I like at La Grande Bibliothèque is on the second floor. You see the exhibit whether you want to or not. It’s just a matter of creating something that will draw your attention.
jlaucius@postmedia.com
查看原文...
